


Advocate

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 01:21:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19121707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: Someone's services are no longer required.





	Advocate

**Author's Note:**

> Holiday cardfic for Cleflink. Prompt: Crowley/Aziraphale - canonize. Takes place pre-Apocalypse but post-Adam, or more precisely, 1983.
> 
> Old, old bookverse stuff from 2009 I'm finally getting around to pulling off my old site. Also, apparently, the layoff here would actually have happened, if, y'know, _if._ :)

Aziraphale was in the backroom, _tsk_ -ing over the binding of a newly-acquired manuscript, when Crowley stormed in and flopped down onto what even Aziraphale privately thought of as Crowley's couch. It was quite the theatric flop, ending with long limbs aggressively sprawled, shoulders slouched and a spine so curved, Crowley appeared to be sitting on roughly the middle of his lumbar vertebrae. He was glaring at Aziraphale from over the tops of his sunglasses, but though his mouth was a simple, flat line, a closer look confirmed Aziraphale's suspicions.

Crowley was _sulking_.(1)

"Is everything all right?" Aziraphale asked without much urgency. He was well acquainted with Crowley's sulks.

"I've been _fired."_

Aziraphale nearly dropped his book.

"B-by...?" he managed, pointing hesitantly at the carpet while laying the delicate old manuscript aside, just in case. Had They found out about the Arrangement? Or, worse, the Plan? Or--

"What? No!" Crowley protested, visibly torn between affront and panic. Mostly it made him look shifty; Aziraphale had the oddest urge to ask him whether he'd cleaned his room.(2) "I'm talking about the Pope!"

"The Pope," Aziraphale echoed. "The _Catholic_ Pope."

"Well, unless you're holding out on me, I can't think of any others," Crowley muttered with a scowl.

Aziraphale had to trap a smile. He was starting to see where this was going.

"Crowley, dear...is this about the new reforms?" Privately he'd thought the canonization process had needed a few repairs, although the direction they'd chosen to take it--

"Reforms," Crowley scoffed, folding his arms.

"Now, really. You do realize the position of the _Devil's_ Advocate is only in name--"

"In name? Only in _name?_ I put _four hundred years_ into that job, angel! Do you have any idea how many bogus claims crossed that desk every week?"

"Er," Aziraphale said, startled. Was Crowley implying--

"Dozens! The seventeenth century alone was a complete nightmare--every one-goat village in Europe had a local favorite they were backing for sainthood, and the miracles they were claiming--since when is flatulence a miracle?"

"You...do mean the curing of--?"

"Sudden, explosive onset," Crowley replied dryly, "driving a pack of bandits from a church before the relics could be stolen."

"Ah."

"The 'miracle' was apparently the unseasonable hint of asparagus."

"I...see."

"And there were hundreds like that. Thousands! Do you know how hard I had to argue that the Blessed Hurley should actually be demoted back to 'Venerable' because sheep couldn't be considered an Act of God?"

"Well, technically--"

"An act, angel, not a byproduct! And don't you start! You wouldn't believe the idiots they got in to argue against me--canon lawyers, _real_ lawyers, as if I didn't create the job. Some of them were pretty good," he admitted grudgingly, "but I made them work for it. You _appreciated_ a saint if he got past me."

"Crowley," Aziraphale murmured, trying to keep the fondness from his voice. The parts of his job Crowley took genuinely to heart never failed to surprise him, but he'd never expected this. He had to wonder whether Crowley had worn different disguises for his role over the years or whether the newest Pope had any idea of who or what he'd just sacked.

"And now look. After four hundred years, they just go and replace me with some _Promoter of Justice,"_ he said with a huff. "They're going to end up letting everybody in, just you wait and see."

He sounded so morose, Aziraphale didn't dare laugh, but he couldn't resist a gentle smile. "That _is_ the goal, my dear."

"Only," Crowley said flatly, "if they deserve it. And they had better deserve it if they're expecting a parade at the end."

"I think it's feast days, actually," Aziraphale replied, mostly to watch Crowley huff at him again. "You could always take over the new post if it bothers you so much...."

Crowley didn't deign to answer that, but Aziraphale knew. Promoter of Justice just wasn't the same thing as Promoter of the Faith, though Crowley clearly preferred the more popular name. If asked, Crowley probably would have insisted that _promoter fidei_ didn't suit him at all, and who'd ever heard of a demon with faith?

That would depend entirely, Aziraphale would have replied, on where that faith was placed, and Crowley's, he suspected, was with the humans.

***

1\. As electrical power is measured in amps, sulking power is measured in angsts. Crowley was currently out-angsting Greater Manchester.

2\. A little-studied property of angst fields is the effect they have on the perception of time, rendering even beings of Crowley's age indistinguishable from the average teenager.


End file.
